Often people tell me to read stuff and generally I do. Well, I start to, anyway. After a few paragraphs of the inner workings of some wannabe writer I start scanning down to see if they are ever going to get to the point. Even when I'm researching looking for material I always seem to end up scanning because no matter how important, how critical the information may be it has failed to engage me.

Well, this link is a first for me. It is brilliant.

It is a Blog with entries every few days from a 24 year-old Iraqi woman living in Iraq and from the first paragraph, I couldn't stop reading it. It begins in the mid-2003 and the last entry is in late 2007 when she and her family escaped to Syria. It has a 'Diary of Anne Frank' feel to it but better written and with a professional adult understanding of the day to day events. It is something extremely rare on the net - she is a world class writer and I do one day expect to see this on a best seller list. Her understanding of Western metaphor and her command of English is unparalelled and she demonstrates the prime directive for activism - don't preach, entertain.

The information here is gold and it's going to take me weeks to read but I am enjoying every minute of it. Her intelligence and her ability to appeal to the humanity in us all is heart-wrenching and it certainly makes a mockery of 'Iraq's reconstruction', the 'Extremists' and the governing council and the endless mistakes being made.

I recommend this as a source, as a reference, as something that needs to be preserved and spread, and as a damn good read.

_________________Mike Gravel for President for the Unity of all States.